text:
Extended transaction models for Business Process Management: from CORBA to Web Services
Atomic transactions are a well-known technique for guaranteeing consistency in the presence of failures. The ACID properties of atomic transactions ensure that even in complex business applications consistency of state is preserved, despite concurrent accesses and failures. However, although this is an extremely useful fault-tolerance technique, it is not sufficient for long running transactions, where relaxation of the properties is necessary. So-called extended transaction models have been around for many years, but until the advent of Web Services, they have tended to remain within academic environments. In this paper we shall examine the requirements and how industry standards for extended transactions developed in the closely-coupled environment of CORBA, have heavily influenced the loosely-coupled environment of Web Services.
Distributed systems pose reliability problems not frequently encountered in centralized systems. A distributed system consisting of a number of computers connected by a network can be subject to independent failure of any of its components, such as the computers themselves, network links, operating systems, or individual applications, and activities may take an indeterminate duration to execute. Decentralization allows parts of the system to fail while other parts remain functioning which leads to the possibility of abnormal behavior of executing applications. With the advent of Web Services, the Web is being populated by service providers who wish to take advantage of this large B2B space. However, the Web is the largest distributed system in history and suffers from failures which can affect both the performance and consistency of applications run over it.
Atomic transactions are a well-known technique for guaranteeing consistency in the presence of failures [1]. The ACID properties of atomic transactions (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) ensure that even in complex business applications consistency of state is preserved, despite concurrent accesses and failures. This is an extremely useful fault-tolerance technique, especially when multiple, possibly remote, resources are involved.
However, as Web Services have evolved as a means to integrate processes and applications at an inter-enterprise level, traditional transaction semantics and protocols have proven to be inappropriate. Web services-based transactions differ from traditional transactions in that they execute over long periods, they require commitments to the transaction to be "negotiated" at runtime, and isolation levels have to be relaxed. So-called extended transaction models have been around for many years, but until the advent of Web Services, they have tended to remain within academic environments. However, the OASIS Web Services Transactions (WS-TX) technical committee is defining the standard for transaction management in Web Services [2] using these models. In this paper we shall first consider why traditional atomic transactions are insufficient for long-running activities, and then describe how the WS-TX solves these problems, building upon research and development work within the OMG which predates Web Services.
The need for extended transaction models
For many years distributed objects plus ACID transactions provided a foundation for building high integrity business applications. The ACID properties of transactions ensure that even in complex business applications the consistency of the application's state is preserved, despite concurrent accesses and failures. A transaction can be terminated in two ways: committed or aborted (rolled back). When a transaction is committed, all changes made within it are made durable (forced on to stable storage such as disk). When a transaction is aborted, all changes made during the lifetime of the transaction are undone.
Traditional transaction systems use a two-phase protocol to achieve atomicity between participants, as illustrated in Figure 1: during the first (preparation) phase, an individual participant must make durable any state changes that occurred during the scope of the transaction, such that these changes can either be rolled back or committed later once the transaction outcome has been determined. Assuming no failures occurred during the first phase, in the second (commitment) phase participants may "overwrite" the original state with the state made durable during the first phase.
Figure 1, Two-phase commit protocol.In order to guarantee consensus, two-phase commit is necessarily a blocking protocol: after returning the first phase response, each participant which returned a commit response must remain blocked until it has received the coordinator's phase 2 message. Until they receive this message, any resources used by the participant are unavailable for use by other transactions, since to do so may result in non-ACID behavior. If the coordinator fails before delivery of the second phase message these resources remain blocked until it recovers.
Consensus groups
It has long been realised that ACID transactions by themselves are not adequate for structuring long-lived applications [3][4]. One well-known enhancement (supported by the CORBA Object Transaction Service, OTS [5]) is to permit nesting of transactions; furthermore, nested transactions could be concurrent. The outermost transaction of such a hierarchy is typically referred to as the top-level transaction. The durability property is only possessed by the top-level transaction, whereas the commits of nested transactions (subtransactions) are provisional upon the commit/abort of an enclosing transaction. This allows for failure confinement strategies, i.e., the failure of a subtransaction does not necessarily cause the failure of its enclosing transaction. Resources acquired within a subtransaction are inherited (retained) by parent transactions upon the commit of the subtransaction, and (assuming no failures) only released when the top-level transaction completes, i.e., they are retained for the duration of the top-level transaction.
The above enhancement is sufficient if an application function can be represented as a single top-level transaction. Frequently this is not the case. Top-level transactions are most suitably viewed as "short-lived" entities, performing stable state changes to the system [4]; they are less well suited for structuring "long-lived" application functions (e.g., running for hours, days,...). Long-lived top-level transactions may reduce the concurrency in the system to an unacceptable level by holding on to resources for a long time; further, if such a transaction aborts, much valuable work already performed could be undone. In short, if an application is composed as a collection of transactions, then during run time, the entire activity representing the application in execution is frequently required to relax some of the ACID properties of the individual transactions. The entire activity can then be viewed as a non-ACID 'extended transaction'.
The spheres of control model [6] describes the underlying concepts of recovery and commitment for extended transactions. Much research work has been done on developing specific extended transaction models [e.g., 7 – 10], concentrating on the notion of consensus groups. Not all participants within a particular extended transaction have to see the same outcome; a specific transaction may possess multiple different consensus groups, with participants in each group observing different outcomes. In addition some consensus groups may allow the atomicity within a specific transaction to be relaxed, allowing subsets of participants to receive different outcomes. This flexibility in the participant list of a group is an important difference between these kinds of extended transactions and traditional transaction systems.
Furthermore, it should be possible for a participant to exit a consensus groups when required. There are a number of reasons why a participant may not longer wish to be involved in the consensus decision; for example, the work it has performed can complete safely irrespective of the final outcome of the consensus group, or it may be necessary for a separate task (a different service or domain) to perform a counter-effect in the event the consensus group cancels the work.
Consensus groups achieve consistent outcomes amongst participants, but are only part of the picture. Often in business-to-business relationships there are hierarchies of these groups (scopes of work), with parent and child relationships existing between them. Typically the work performed by a child is provisional on the successful completion of the parent, i.e., the parent scope can perform a counter-effect for the completed child. In a nested scope relationship (e.g., nested transactions), the sub-scopes can complete independently of their parents and may then impose compensation requirements on the parent.
In addition to understanding the outcomes, a participant within a business transaction may need to support provisional or tentative state changes during the course of the transaction. Such parties must also support the completion of a business transaction either through confirmation (final effect) or cancellation (counter-effect). In general, what it means to confirm or cancel work done within a business transaction will be for the participant to determine. For example, an application may choose to perform changes as provisional effect and make them visible to other business transactions. It may store necessary information to undo these changes at the same time. On confirmation, it may simply discard this undo changes or on cancellation, it may apply these undo changes. An application can employ such a compensation based approach or take a conventional "rollback" approach, for example.
The CORBA Activity Service
Despite the fact that there are obvious requirements for extended transactions, most of the proposed techniques have not found any widespread usage; indeed, most commercial transaction processing systems do not even support nesting of transactions. One reason cited is lack of flexibility [11], in that the wide range of extended transaction models is indicative that a single model is not sufficient for all applications, so it would be inappropriate to 'hardwire' a specific extension mechanism. In any case, most transaction processing monitors are monolithic in structure, so difficult to extend. Thus the situation remained that a programmer often had to develop application specific mechanisms to build extended transactions.
There is a way out of this situation by exploiting a middleware based approach; in the case of CORBA for example, a set of open services are already available for building distributed applications. Within this context, it is appropriate to examine what additional functionality is required for flexible ways of composing an application using transactions, with the support for enabling the application to possess some or all ACID properties. This was the basis for the CORBA Activity Service work [12], which used the insight that the various extended transaction models can be supported by providing a general purpose event signalling mechanism that can be programmed to enable activities - application specific units of computations – to coordinate each other in a manner prescribed by the extended transaction model under consideration.
The different extended transaction models can be mapped onto specific implementations of the Activity Service framework permitting transactions to span a network of systems connected indirectly by some distribution infrastructure.
Therefore the CORBA Activity Service standard defines two entities [13]:
- The coordinator: this is a generic coordinator that is only responsible for sending and receiving messages of arbitrary types, called Signals. The intention is that the coordinator implementation is simply a framework that is useful only when augmented.
- The coordinator intelligence: this is the augmentation (called a SignalSet) to the coordinator that enables it to execute a specific protocol, such as two-phase commit. This is the key to the extensibility of the Activity Service.
A given coordinator implementation can take any number of SignalSets in order to execute different protocols. As a result, the coordinator is a fairly lightweight entity, having delegated most of its responsibilities to the SignalSet.
Although the framework was originally designed as part of CORBA, the main ideas were sufficiently general so that it was later incorporated within the J2EE architecture [14]. When the first attempt to provide an industry standard for Web Services was started in 2001 [15], one of the initial submissions was based on the Activity Service work [16]; unfortunately that proposal was not accepted, and it was not until 2005 that a similar proposal re-emerged in the form of the OASIS WS-TX committee.
Web Services Coordination
Although the original CORBA Activity Service was intended as a framework for extended transactions, it was apparent that it could be used more widely: wherever coordination was needed. Coordination is a requirement in a variety of different aspects of distributed applications, e.g., workflow, security, atomic transactions, caching and replication, security, auctioning, and business-to-business activities. Fortunately the Web Services architecture is sufficiently immature and evolving that coordination as a fundamental service fits in well.
Therefore, unlike in the original OMG Activity Service, the initial approach to defining a standard for Web Services transactions was to separate out the coordination aspect so that that it could be used more widely. This was the aim of the Web Services Coordination specification [2]: to provide a lightweight framework for coordination that can be augmented to suit specific requirements, as shown in Figure 2.
The WS-Coordination specification defines an abstract notion of activities, which are distributed units of work, involving one or more parties (which may be services, components, or even objects). At this level, an activity is minimally specified and is simply created, made to run, and then completed. It is the responsibility of higher-level services or specifications to augment WS-Coordination and concretely define an activity.
Whatever coordination protocol is used, the same requirements are present:
- Instantiation (or activation) of a new coordinator for the specific coordination protocol, for a particular application instance;
- Registration of participants with the coordinator, such that they will receive that coordinator's protocol messages during (some part of) the application's lifetime;
- Propagation of contextual information between Web services that comprise the application; the context contains sufficient information to uniquely identify the coordinator instance;
- An entity to drive the coordination protocol through to completion.
The model for WS-Coordination is based upon similar concepts to the OMG Activity Service: defining a lightweight coordinator infrastructure. In WS-Coordination, this is accomplished through two Web Services.
The first, the activation service, supports the creation of coordinators for specific protocols and their associated contexts. The process of invoking an activation service occurs asynchronously, so the activation service calls back to deliver the context that identifies the type of transaction and coordinator location. This asynchronous approach reduces the tight coupling between end-points typically seen in other environments, which has the advantage of improved fault-tolerance, modularity and deployment considerations.
Once a coordinator has been instantiated and a corresponding context created by the activation service, the second service type, the registration service, is created and exposed. This service allows participants to register to receive protocol messages associated with a particular coordinator. Like the activation service, the registration service assumes asynchronous communication.
Apart from generic coordinator-specific faults, the WS-Coordination specification defines nothing else, leaving protocol specifics to users, such as the various Web Services transactions specifications.
Web Services Transactions
There are currently two transaction models defined by the WS-TX committee which augment WS-Coordination. In this section we shall compare and contrast the models. It is important to note that these two models are not meant to cover all possible use cases for transactions. If scenarios arise that cannot be solved using the existing transaction protocols, then additional models (and associated protocols) will be defined to further augment WS-Coordination.
The Atomic Transaction protocol
The Atomic Transaction (AT) protocol is a consensus group that enforces strict atomicity amongst its participants. There has been much written about the inapplicability of atomic transactions to Web Services [17][18]. However, these all ignore the central reason for using ATs: interoperability and short-duration interactions. There is a place for traditional transaction systems in Web services and this is precisely where the Atomic Transaction model is intended to be used. Interoperability between traditional transaction processing systems has been a holy grail for many years. Prior to Web Services, the closest that the industry came was in the development of the OMG's Object Transaction Service, but even then it took nearly 10 years to produce an interoperable version. Web Services would appear to have solved the problem in a fraction of that time [19].
To begin an atomic transaction, the client application must first locate a coordinator service (instance of WS-Coordination) that supports the correct model. Once located, the client instructs it to start a new transaction and gets back a transaction context containing a reference to the transaction's Registration Service. After obtaining the context, the client application then proceeds to interact with Web services to accomplish its business-level work. With each invocation on a business service, the client propagates the context, such that the each invocation is implicitly scoped by the transaction.
Once all the necessary application level work has been completed, the client can terminate the transaction. Transaction termination uses a traditional (durable) two-phase commit protocol (Durable2PC); participants are expected to act on persistent data, such as tables in a database or resources maintained in the file system. One obvious difference between the Atomic Transaction protocol and traditional transaction systems is the lack of a one-phase commit optimisation [3]: if a transaction involves only a single participant then the participant's decisions is implicitly the outcome of the transaction and only a single phase protocol is required. The lack of such support in the Web Services transactions protocol is an oversight that will adversely affect performance.
Figure 3 shows the state transitions of an Atomic Transaction and the message exchanges between coordinator and participant; the coordinator generated messages are shown in the solid line, whereas the participant messages are shown by dashed lines.
Figure 3, Two-Phase Commit State TransitionsIn addition to the traditional Durable2PC protocol, the Atomic Transaction protocol also supports a Volatile2PC, whose prepare phase runs before the entire Durable2PC, whilst the commit or rollback phase runs after the Durable2PC has completed. The reason behind this protocol is that accessing durable storage is often the performance bottleneck, and hence caching of an object's state (e.g., an entire database table) and operating on that cached state for the duration of a transaction can significantly improve performance over the alternative of continually going back and forth to the database. However, there is obviously a need to force that state back to the original persistence store prior to the transaction committing.
Volatile2PC turn the two-phase commit protocol into a four-phase protocol:
- Before the transaction starts the Durable2PC, all participants registered with the Volatile2PC are informed and can flush cached data. Any failure at this point will cause the transaction to roll back.
- The coordinator then conducts the entire Durable2PC protocol.>
- Once the transaction has terminated, the second phase of the Volatile2PC protocol is executed. However, this is a courtesy invocation because any failures at this stage are ignored: the transaction has terminated so there's nothing to affect.
The Atomic Transaction model successfully models the traditional ACID transaction protocol within Web Services. It is meant to map to existing transaction standards which have a well defined behavior for atomicity (well-formed and two-phase), isolation (no dirty reads, repeatable reads) and durability (no lost data). AT is useful only in trusted domains where transactions are of short duration. If such is not the case, then the other transaction protocol defined with WS-TX should be used.
Business Activities (BA)
A business activity is designed specifically for long-duration transactions, where exclusively locking resources is impossible or impractical. In this model (based on the Sagas extended transaction model [11]), services are requested to do work, and where those services have the ability to undo any work, they inform the BA such that if the BA later decides to cancel, it can instruct the service to execute its undo behavior. While the full ACID semantics are not supported by this model, consistency can still be maintained through compensation, though the task of writing correct compensating actions (and thus overall system consistency) is delegated to the developers of the services.
A business activity may be partitioned into scopes, as described earlier. Such scopes can be nested to arbitrary levels, forming parent and child relationships. A parent scope has the ability to select which child tasks are to be included in the overall outcome protocol for a specific business activity, and therefore non-atomic outcomes are possible: a Business Activity defines a consensus group that allows the relaxation of atomicity based on business level decisions. For example, if a child task experiences an error, it can be caught by the parent who may be able to compensate and continue processing.
When a child task completes it can either leave the business activity or signal to the parent that the work it has done can be compensated later. In the latter case, the compensation task may be called by the parent should it ultimately need to undo the work performed by the child.
Unlike the Atomic Transaction protocol model, where participants inform the coordinator of their state only when asked, a task within a business activity can specify its outcome to the parent directly without waiting for a request. This feature is useful when tasks fail such that the notification can be used by business activity exception handler to modify the goals and drive processing forward without having to meekly wait until the end of the transaction to admit to having failed – a well designed Business Activities should be proactive.
Underpinning all of this are three fundamental assumptions:
- All state transitions are reliably recorded, including application state and coordination metadata (the record of sent and received messages);
- All request messages are acknowledged, so that problems are detected as early as possible. This avoids executing unnecessary tasks and can also detect a problem earlier when rectifying it is simpler and less expensive;
- As with atomic transactions, a response is defined as a separate operation and not as the output of the request. Message input-output implementations will typically have timeouts that are too short for some business activity responses. If the response is not received after a timeout, it is resent. This is repeated until a response is received. The request receiver discards all but one identical request received.
As with the Atomic Transaction protocol, the BA model has multiple protocols: BusinessAgreementWithCoordinatorComplete and BusinessAgreementWithParticipantComplete. However, unlike the AT protocol which is driven from the coordinator down to participants, this protocol is driven much more from the participants upwards.
Under the BusinessAgreementWithParticipantComplete protocol, a child activity is initially created in an active state; if it finishes the work it was created to do and no more participation is required within the scope of the BA (such as when the activity operates on immutable data), then the child can unilaterally resign from the parent scope. However, if the child task finishes and wishes to continue in the BA then it must be able to compensate for the work it has performed. In this case it informs the parent scope and waits to receive the final outcome of the BA from the parent. This outcome will either be that the parent completes successfully and no further work is required from the participant, or that the parent completes unsuccessfully and therefore requires the child scope to compensate.
The BusinessAgreementWithCoordinatorComplete protocol is identical to the BusinessAgreement WithParticipantComplete protocol with the exception that the child cannot autonomously decide to end its participation in the business activity, even if it can be compensated. Rather the child task relies upon the parent to inform it when the child has received all requests for it to perform work which the parent does this by sending the complete message to the child. The child then acts as it does in the BusinessAgreementWithParticipantComplete protocol.
Example scenario
In this section we shall look at an example where Business Activities are more appropriate than Atomic Transactions. In this example, we shall take the relatively simple scenario of arranging travel and accommodation for a conference. In particular, the attendee will require a flight to the city where the conference is being held, a room reservation at a hotel and possibly a rental car for the duration of the conference. While locating flight, hotel and car rental options we need to ensure likely options can be reserved as we assemble the required set of reservations required for the trip as a whole. As well as considering the needs of the conference attendee, service providers also need to have some autonomy and maintain control of their own resources (flight, room, and car rental reservations).
The elements required for the booking are interrelated within this domain and yet they are not necessarily predetermined. Obviously without a flight it makes no sense to book the hotel or to rent a car unless the conference were local, but in other circumstances it may make sense to book the flight and hotel, but if the hotel booking we make is at the same hotel as the conference it may be possible to do without the car rental.
We may also want to keep our options open by reserving a number of flights while looking for other more direct travel options or other convenient hotels. The customer solicits multiple quotes to determine the lowest-cost supplier. Therefore, conducting the entire travel arrangements within a single Atomic Transaction is inappropriate, since in that situation either all of the work occurs or none occurs: it would not be possible to have the partial outcomes (relaxed atomicity) that might be required if visiting multiple flight booking services, for example.
Figure 4, Travel arrangement scenario.This example discusses the requirements of business transactions which need a mechanism to select and manage the tasks that are included in the overall application outcome. For simplicity, we shall only consider relaxing the atomicity property for selecting the required flight; extensions to the entire travel scenario are left as an exercise to the reader. Figure 5 show the application configuration: each flight service exposes operations to reserve, confirm or cancel seats on a specific flight.
Figure 5, The system configuration.The travel agent makes invocations on each of the services to obtain a quote for a seat on the flight. Xantas.com ALU.com and ZA.com acknowledge the Travel Agent's Flight Booking Requests (i.e., application level response). In this example (shown in Figure 6),the implementations behind ALU and BA provisionally book seats while Xantas actually reserves a seat. The Xantas service implementation conveys this information to the BA coordinator which then knows it must inform the associated participant to compensate ("unbook" the seat) in the event the parent scope has to eventually undo the entire reservation process or the agent obtains a cheaper quote; the other services do not have to compensate because they have not performed any state changes.
Figure 6, Making the requestsBased on the prices returned, the travel agent decides to go ahead and book the two-legged flight offered by Xantas and ZA, shown in Figure 7 .Because ALU did not reserve seats, there is no need to cancel the ALU flight.
Figure 7, Canceling a quote.Since the flight chosen involves two parties, Xantas and ZA, the Travel Agent then requests ZA to reserve a seat. ZA acknowledges the reservation. The participant then tells the coordinator that the task has completed (Figure 8).
Figure 8, Choosing the right quote.The application has now chosen the seat reservations that are to be included in the overall booking. You will notice that the final set of participants chosen must terminate atomically. In the example ZA and Xantas need to make commitment to the transaction and complete as an atomic set. We could have shown this as an atomic transaction within the scope of the overall business application, but instead we chosen to illustrate a more simple scenario where the Travel Agent forces this outcome directly.
The Coordinator now has received acknowledgments from Xantas.com and ZA.com, and the requested portions of the business transaction Travel Agent have completed. The coordinator therefore goes ahead and confirms the Business Activity (via close shown in shown in Figure 9) the seat reservations offered by ZA.com and Xantas.com.
Figure 9, Travel agent forcing the outcome.If ALU had reserved a seat then the Travel Agent would need to instruct ALU to cancel the booking. The transaction service would then remove ALU from the tasks participating in the transaction. The Travel Agent would then confirm the reservation for the remaining tasks as shown in Figure 10.
Figure 10, Travel agent confirming the quote.Conclusions
It has long been realised that ACID transactions by themselves are not adequate for structuring long-lived applications and much research work has been done on developing specific extended transaction models. However, until the advent of the CORBA Activity Service framework, no middleware support for building extended transactions was available. The Activity Service provides a general purpose event signalling mechanism that can be programmed to enable activities to coordinate each other in a manner prescribed by the model under consideration.
Unfortunately, despite it also being adopted with J2EE, there were few opportunities for using extended transactions in these environments. It was not until the advent of Web Services, where applications are typically loosely coupled and interactions last for hours or days, that the need for extended transactions overtook that for traditional ACID transactions [20]. The principles defined within the original OMG work, separation of general coordination from specific protocol, were embraced. The fact that the Web Services architecture is still under development also means that the fundamental requirements for coordination that are encapsulated within the WS-Coordination specification, have not been provided elsewhere, which was certainly a contributing factor to the slow acceptance of the Activity Service within the OMG and J2EE.
It is worth noting that the WS-TX effort is not the first attempt at producing a standard for Web Services transactions. In 2001, a consortium of companies including Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and BEA began work on the OASIS Business Transaction Protocol (BTP) [21], which was aimed at business-to-business transactions in loosely coupled domains such as Web Services. The specification developed two new models for "transactions", requiring business-level decisions to be incorporated within the transaction infrastructure. It was based on the premise that a single (two-phase) protocol is suitable for all use cases. Because the traditional two-phase algorithm does not impose any restrictions on the time between executing the first and second phases, BTP took the approach of using this to allow business-logic decisions to be inserted between the phases. What this means is that users have to drive the two phases explicitly in what BTP terms an open-top completion protocol. The application has complete control over when transactions prepare, and using use whatever business logic is required later determine which transactions to confirm or cancel. Prepare becomes part of the service business logic, for example.
This work did not succeed because of lack of acceptance of the notion that one protocol can fit all use cases. Therefore, building upon the Activity Service concepts, in 2003 Arjuna, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, IONA Technologies and Fujitsu founded the OASIS Web Services Composite Application Framework [22], which has similar goals to WS-TX and defines three transaction protocols, each aimed at a specific use case.
However, there is still much debate as to the right approach. Does one-size really fit all? Is inserting business logic directly within the transaction protocol the right abstraction? The argument for a single protocol is that all of the models examined are two-phase, albeit with different names for the phases. However, proponents of the multi-protocol approach argue that despite the fact most models are two-phase, there are different semantics associated with each phase and it is those semantics that are important.
One thing that most people agree on, however, is that ACID transactions have been invaluable over the years in the construction of enterprise applications. Unfortunately, they are only really suited to short duration activities executing on closely coupled applications and environments. When used in a loosely coupled environment, they prove too inflexible and restricting for many applications. The work to incorporate extended transaction models that allow the relaxation of ACID properties began in the OMG, but has proven more valuable within the evolving Web Services arena.
[1] X/Open CAE Specification - Distributed Transaction Processing: The XA Specification, X/Open Document Number XO/CAE/91/300.
[2] Web Services Transaction Technical Committee, OASIS,
[3] J. N. Gray, "The transaction concept: virtues and limitations", Proceedings of the 7th VLDB Conference, September 1981, pp. 144-154.
[4] D. J. Taylor, "How big can an atomic action be?", Proceedings of the 5th Symposium on Reliability in Distributed Software and Database Systems, Los Angeles, January 1986, pp. 121-124.
[5] OMG Object Transaction Service, http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/apps/do_doc?formal/02-08-07.pdf
[6] C. T. Davies, "Data processing spheres of control", IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 17, No. 2, 1978, pp. 179-198.
[7] A. K. Elmagarmid (ed), "Transaction models for advanced database applications", Morgan Kaufmann, 1992.
[8] H. Garcia-Molina and K. Salem, "Sagas", Proceedings of the ACM SIGMOD International Conference on the Management of Data, 1987.
[9] S. K. Shrivastava and S. M. Wheater, "Implementing fault-tolerant distributed applications using objects and multi-coloured actions", Proc. of 10th Intl. Conf. on Distributed Computing Systems, ICDCS-10, Paris, June 1990, pp. 203-210.
[10] G.Weikum, H.J.Schek, "Concepts and Applications of Multilevel Transactions and Open Nested Transactions", in Database Transaction Models for Advanced Applications, ed. A.K. Elmagarmid, Morgan Kaufmann, 1992.
[11] G. Alonso, D. Agrawal, A. El Abbadi, M. Kamath, R. Gunthor and C. Mohan, "Advanced transaction models in workflow contexts", Proc. of 12th Intl. Conf. on Data Engineering, New Orleans, March 1996.
[12] OMG Additional Structuring Mechanisms for the OTS, http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/apps/do_doc?formal/02-09-03.pdf
[13] I. Houston, M. Little, et al. "The CORBA Activity Service Framework for Supporting Extended Transactions", Proceedings of Middleware 2001, Heidelberg, 2001.
[14] "J2EE Activity Service for Extended Transactions", http://www.jcp.org/jsr/detail/95.jsp
[15] BTP Committee specification, http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/business-transaction/, April 2002.
[16] "A Framework for Implementing Business Transactions on the Web", Hewlett-Packard initial submission to BTP, March 2001, http://www.oasis-open.org/committee/business-transactions/
[17] "The Business Transactions Protocol. Transactions for a New Age", Mark Little, in Web Services Journal, Volume 2, Issue 10 (October 2002), pp. 56-60.
[18] "Shootout at the transaction corral; BTP versus WS-T", http://www.objectwatch.com/issue_41.htm
[19] Results of WS-Transactions Interoperability Workshop,
[20] Business Process Execution Language for Web Services, version 1.1, http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/2046/BPEL%20V1-1%20May%205%202003%20Final.pdf
[21] BTP Committee specification, http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/business-transactions/, April 2002.
[22] The Web Services Composite Application Framework Technical Committee, http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/documents.php?wg_abbrev=ws-caf


text:
Sungkyul University Creates An Innovative Extended-Reality Center with HARMAN Professional Solutions
February 07, 2020
ANYANG, South Korea—TechData PS Co., Ltd. and Myeongseong Nano System recently equipped the new XR Center at Sungkyul University with a state-of-the-art HARMAN Professional Solutions immersive audio system powered by JBL, Crown and BSS solutions.
First established in Seoul in 1962 before moving to a sprawling campus in Anyang, Gyeonggi-do province in 1975, Sungkyul University is currently attended by over 4,500 students. The university recently added a state-of-the-art Extended Reality (XR) Center devoted to the study and development of virtual, augmented and mixed-reality technologies; the first facility of its kind in South Korea. To provide immersive sound to compliment a variety of XR experiences, Sungkyul University commissioned AV integrators TechData PS and Myeongseong Nano System to design and install a state-of-the-art audio system featuring a JBL Intonato Monitor Management and Tuning System, JBL loudspeakers, Crown amplifiers and BSS signal processors.
"We required a solution that could bring out the best in our cutting-edge XR Center," said Hyeon Sik Yu, Director of XR Center, Sungkyul University. "Our criteria for the project was quite clear from the beginning. The sound system had to deliver powerful output with a high degree of clarity and even distribution; and of course, it had to be flexible enough to adapt to various AV formats. Having said that, we are very satisfied with the solutions provided by TechData PS , as these products meet all the requirements and achieve the highest quality of sound at reasonable prices."
TechData PS and Myeongseong designed the XR Center's audio system around the JBL Intonato 24 Monitor Management and Tuning System for maximum flexibility and control. With 24 analog inputs and outputs, the Intonato 24 is capable of accommodating the large multi-speaker setups necessary for creating immersive, three-dimensional sound for XR experiences. Cutting-edge speaker calibration software and an external microphone input streamline the setup process with automatic calibration for a variety of surround sound and immersive audio speaker configurations. Multiple RJ45 ports for JBL HiQnet and BLU Link connectivity allow the Intonato 24 to interface with networked audio systems for even greater flexibility.
The Intonato 24 feeds a set of 11 JBL 708i monitors and an S2S-EX subwoofer arranged in a 7.1.4 configuration. Seven directional speakers form a circle similar to traditional 7.1 surround sound speaker placement, while four overhead speakers add a height dimension, creating a true three-dimensional sound field. TechData PS and Myeongseong selected the 8-inch JBL 708i for its extended frequency response and Image Control Waveguide, which provides enhanced spatial accuracy. The S2S-EX subwoofer delivers additional low-frequency output with minimal distortion thanks to a 15-inch driver and dual SlipStream ports, supplementing the main speaker array with deep bass to enhance the immersion.
The loudspeakers and subwoofer are powered by Crown DCi 8|300N, 4|300N, 2|300N and 2|1250N amplifiers, which provide ample headroom for ultra-transparent sound. The Crown amplifiers are connected to BSS digital signal processors via BLU Link, a low-latency, fault-tolerant 48-channel digital audio bus carried over standard Cat 5e cabling, creating a flexible audio network. The BSS BLU-120 and BLU-50 signal processors perform complex digital signal routing and provide powerful DSP for fine-tuning the array. TechData PS and Myeongseong added BLU-DAN cards to allow the system to transmit data over the Dante network protocol.
"The client required an industry-leading sound system to supplement the cutting-edge technology at the XR Center," said Won Ha, Jeong, Sales Representative, TechData PS Co., Ltd. "In addition, they requested a sound system that was being adopted for its quality by eminent companies in the Republic of Korea. Moreover, the system had to be flexible, allowing students to experience various audio formats while also providing powerful sound distribution and clear output for the theater. After assessing the specific requirements, we concluded that sound solutions powered by HARMAN and JBL would be best suited for the project."
"The project at Sungkyul University was a momentous one, being the first use case of ultra-modern audio solutions in South Korea," said Ramesh Jayaraman, VP & GM, HARMAN Professional Solutions, APAC. "We would like to thank our partner TechData PS Co., Ltd., for not just designing and executing the solution to the last detail, but also pioneering the use of such an innovative setup."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Here is a good article by CNN writer, Alan Miller.
Editor's note: Alan Miller is Director of The New York Salon and Co-Founder of London's Old Truman Brewery. He is speaking at The Battle of Ideas at London's Barbican in October.
The increasingly common refrain that "I'm spiritual, but not religious," represents some of the most retrogressive aspects of contemporary society. The spiritual but not religious "movement" – an inappropriate term as that would suggest some collective, organizational aspect – highlights the implosion of belief that has struck at the heart of Western society.
Spiritual but not religious people are especially prevalent in the younger population in the United States, although a recent study has argued that it is not so much that people have stopped believing in God, but rather have drifted from formal institutions.
It seems that just being a part of a religious institution is nowadays associated negatively, with everything from the Religious Right to child abuse, back to the Crusades and of course with terrorism today.
Those in the spiritual-but-not-religious camp are peddling the notion that by being independent – by choosing an "individual relationship" to some concept of "higher power", energy, oneness or something-or-other – they are in a deeper, more profound relationship than one that is coerced via a large institution like a church.
That attitude fits with the message we are receiving more and more that "feeling" something somehow is more pure and perhaps, more "true" than having to fit in with the doctrine, practices, rules and observations of a formal institution that are handed down to us.
The trouble is that "spiritual but not religious" offers no positive exposition or understanding or explanation of a body of belief or set of principles of any kind.
What is it, this "spiritual" identity as such? What is practiced? What is believed?
The accusation is often leveled that such questions betray a rigidity of outlook, all a tad doctrinaire and rather old-fashioned.
But when the contemporary fashion is for an abundance of relativist "truths" and what appears to be in the ascendancy is how one "feels" and even governments aim to have a "happiness agenda," desperate to fill a gap at the heart of civic society, then being old-fashioned may not be such a terrible accusation.
It is within the context of today's anti-big, anti-discipline, anti-challenging climate – in combination with a therapeutic turn in which everything can be resolved through addressing my inner existential being – that the spiritual but not religious outlook has flourished.
The boom in megachurches merely reflect this sidelining of serious religious study for networking, drop-in centers and positive feelings.
Those that identify themselves, in our multi-cultural, hyphenated-American world often go for a smorgasbord of pick-and-mix choices.
A bit of Yoga here, a Zen idea there, a quote from Taoism and a Kabbalah class, a bit of Sufism and maybe some Feing Shui but not generally a reading and appreciation of The Bhagavad Gita, the Karma Sutra or the Qur'an, let alone The Old or New Testament.
So what, one may ask?
Christianity has been interwoven and seminal in Western history and culture. As Harold Bloom pointed out in his book on the King James Bible, everything from the visual arts, to Bach and our canon of literature generally would not be possible without this enormously important work.
Indeed, it was through the desire to know and read the Bible that reading became a reality for the masses – an entirely radical moment that had enormous consequences for humanity.
Moreover, the spiritual but not religious reflect the "me" generation of self-obsessed, truth-is-whatever-you-feel-it-to-be thinking, where big, historic, demanding institutions that have expectations about behavior, attitudes and observance and rules are jettisoned yet nothing positive is put in replacement.
The idea of sin has always been accompanied by the sense of what one could do to improve oneself and impact the world.
Yet the spiritual-but-not-religious outlook sees the human as one that simply wants to experience "nice things" and "feel better." There is little of transformation here and nothing that points to any kind of project that can inspire or transform us.
At the heart of the spiritual but not religious attitude is an unwillingness to take a real position. Influenced by the contribution of modern science, there is a reluctance to advocate a literalist translation of the world.
But these people will not abandon their affiliation to the sense that there is "something out there," so they do not go along with a rationalist and materialistic explanation of the world, in which humans are responsible to themselves and one another for their actions – and for the future.
Theirs is a world of fence-sitting, not-knowingess, but not-trying-ness either. Take a stand, I say. Which one is it? A belief in God and Scripture or a commitment to the Enlightenment ideal of human-based knowledge, reason and action? Being spiritual but not religious avoids having to think too hard about having to decide.


text:
Buy, Sell, or Hold: Atlantic Power
When considering any stock for your portfolio, don't be swayed by just the positives. Examine its pros and cons, and decide whether it's possible upside outweighs its risks. Let's take a look at Atlantic Power today, and see why you might want to buy, sell, or hold it.
Founded only in 2004 and headquartered in Boston, Atlantic is a power generation and infrastructure company focused on the U.S. and Canada. The company has a market capitalization of about $1.4 billion, and its stock is down about 12% over the past year.
One reason to like Atlantic Power is its industry: It's a classic "defensive" one, as consumers are not going to put off buying electricity because times are tight. Utility companies have long been viewed as reliable dividend payers, and Atlantic offers a heck of a dividend at the moment, recently yielding a whopping 10%. It would be reasonable to check the company's dividend payout history, to get a sense of how rapidly it might grow, but this dividend was initiated only in 2010. Though it has fluctuated a bit, it's up a total of 8% since it began. This dividend is paid monthly, too, as opposed to the more typical quarterly arrangement.
Another plus is that the company is investing heavily in itself, sporting a higher capital expense ratio than many peers. That's good, as new projects can pay off in the future. But some might reasonably worry whether the company can afford to spend as much as it's spending. Along with traditional electricity generation, Atlantic is also dealing in alternative technologies such as biomass, hydroelectric, and windpower.
Then there's this: Despite many hand-wringers, the tide has turned a bit, with analysts at Canadian BMO Capital Markets recently initiating coverage of the stock with an "outperform" rating and Desjardins analysts giving it an even more confident "buy" rating. That bodes well, suggesting that these folks see value in the stock, but remember that even good analysts are wrong sometimes. When my colleague Rich Smith reported on these upgrades, he noted that there are less risky companies out there that have also been upgraded or rated highly -- such as Sirius XM Radio , which is actually profitable and growing, though it remains dividend-less.
Remember that whopping dividend? Well, it won't necessarily remain so whopping. The company has posted net losses instead of net gains in recent years, making its payout not very sustainable unless it moves back into the black. Free cash flow was positive as of a few years ago, but the past two or so years have reflected losses.
Another concern is stock dilution, as the number of shares outstanding has nearly doubled over the past few years. If that keeps up, then the value of existing shares may keep shrinking.
You might be happy to see Atlantic Power's short-term debt falling, but that's peanuts next to its long-term debt, which has gone from about $800 million in 2007 down to $433 million in 2009 -- before ballooning to more than $1.5 billion as of September. That's worrisome because if the company can't make its debt obligations, it might resort to issuing more shares or selling off valuable assets. The company issued a lot of relatively high-interest rate debt last year, executing a growth-by-acquisition strategy as it aimed to double its capacity. (The company recently announced plans to buy wind-and-solar specialist Ridgeline Energy for $88 million.)
Meanwhile, operating profit margins have been shrinking in recent years, while net margins are negative.
These kinds of factors have turned off investors enough that about 3.7% of shares outstanding had been shorted as of late November. That represented eight days' worth of trading at recent volume levels.
Hold (off)
Given the reasons to buy or sell Atlantic Power, it's not unreasonable to decide to just hold off on it. You might want to wait for it to become profitable and to generate lots of free cash flow. You might want to be more certain that its dividend won't be eliminated, or cut much.
You might also consider other energy companies. If you're willing to invest in a substantial nuclear-power powerhouse, take a look at Exelon , which also generates power via alternate means. It's huge and geographically diversified -- and recently yielded 7% (though that might drop some). Contrast that with National Grid , recently yielding 4%, which has its operations focused mainly in the northeastern part of the United States and also in the U.K. National Grid has been hiking its payout by an annual average of 10% over the past five years, though, which is promising, versus just 3.3% for Exelon.
PPL also has many admirers and recently yielded a solid 5%. It has been growing at a faster clip than many peers, with double-digit average annual growth rates for revenue and earnings over the past three years. (These rates have been accelerating, too.) Its UK operations are doing particularly well, and the company has been focusing more on regulated generation, which tends to be less risky. Its capital spending has driven up its debt burden, though, and the company's Pennsylvania operations got whacked by Hurricane Sandy.
The verdict
I'm holding off on Atlantic Power for now. But everyone's investment calculations are different. Do your own digging and see what you think. Atlantic Power may perform spectacularly in the coming years, but remember that there are plenty of compelling stocks out there.
If you're looking for hefty dividends, The Motley Fool has compiled a special free report outlining our nine top dependable dividend-paying stocks. It's called "Secure Your Future With 9 Rock-Solid Dividend Stocks." You can access your copy today at no cost. Just click here to discover the winners we've picked.
The article Buy, Sell, or Hold: Atlantic Power originally appeared on Fool.com.
Longtime Fool contributor Selena Maranjian, whom you can follow on Twitter, owns shares of National Grid plc (ADR). The Motley Fool has no positions in the stocks mentioned above. Motley Fool newsletter services recommend Exelon and National Grid plc (ADR). Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright © 1995 - 2012 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.


text:
The Styrvok Freighter variants were designed by the Canterans and so have only been used in DeVries until now. Based on a relatively elderly and long-unaltered design, these ships often appear as beaten-up, well-patched work-horses that have seen much better days. They can still be built, for the right buyer, at a Canteran shipyard but the shiny newly-produced ones really stand out compared to the older much-used versions. Such new ones share the same specifications with the older models and so are not at all cutting-edge. Compared to other more modern freighter designs they are much smaller with less freight capacity, although that sometimes gives them an edge on pick-up and delivery speed. The roles of the single-ware and mixed-ware type models can be identified from the individually-distinctive cargo area designs.
Ship size: Large (L)
Shield strengh: 300 000 HP
Hull strenght: 900 000 HP
Cargobay: 78 000 m3
Max speed: 82 m/s
Total DPS: 11 200
+4km DPS: n/a
Estimated price: 5 800 000 CR
Bio-optic wiring: 38
Energy cells: 420
Food rations: 240
Fusion reactors: 10
Podkletnov Generators: 8
Microchips: 44
Plasma-flow regulators: 6
Reinforced metal plating: 22
Scanning array: 18
AlphaOrbital - 2023.


text:
Local Expert – Dr. Michael Workman and Dr. Lee Robinson
Two plastic surgeons, one goal.
An easy way to think of it is that Dr. Workman does the surgeries from the shoulders down, while Dr. Robinson does most of his work from the neck up. For most people, deciding to have plastic or reconstructive surgery can be an important and, ultimately, life-changing decision. The single most important factor in determining the success of a procedure is your choice of a surgeon. To perform any cosmetic surgery procedure, you absolutely need to trust the hands of your surgeon. Before you can move forward, it is prudent to get up to date information from reputable surgeons with the finest training, certification and wealth of experience.
Michael Workman, M.D.
Dr. Michael Workman is certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery and has practiced in greater-Portland metro area since 1993. He performed over 400 surgeries last year and believes that achieving beautiful results while providing patients with a safe, comfortable environment is paramount. He specializes in Breast Augmentation, Liposuction and Tummy Tucks.A skilled surgeon with thousands of satisfied patients, Dr. Workman believes that listening to you and thoroughly answering your questions helps to ensure a positive experience. Dr. Workman has practiced in the Portland / Vancouver area for over 10 years.
Ask the expert: firstname.lastname@example.com
Earn Key VIP Points - Dr. Workman
Lee D. Robinson, M.D., P.C.
Dr. Robinson is a board certified facial plastic surgeon specializing in cosmetic surgery of the face. With nearly 20 years of facial cosmetic surgery experience, he has gained the expertise that will assure the results you desire. Dr. Robinson specializes in the most visible cosmetic procedures of the face including facelift, brow lift, rhinoplasty, eyelid surgery, protruding ear surgery and chin implants.
Rigorous examination as well as review of surgical procedures is required to meet the highest standards of excellence. Dr. Robinson understands that plastic surgery is more than just a science, it requires astute judgment and a willingness to be honest with a patient. He takes a conservative approach. He will not recommend surgery unless he feels sure he can help you, and the results will meet or exceed your expectations.


text:
The most valuable gift you can give to your children is a healthy and happy childhood. So gift your children by renting Goldmine and let your children play with their friends on their birthday. Goldmine is a game that excites children who are conceptually jumping, climbing, sliding and rolling. This kind of activity makes your cute kids and their friends happy all the time. Size: 30(L) x 10(W) x 12(H) ft
Rates include Klang valley transport area and crew on site, for 6 hours rental.
Reviews (0)
view all


text:
Drink to your health
Proper hydration helps you achieve fitness goals
Being properly hydrated is one of the best things you can do in taking care of your body. That means being in balance — the water your body loses from perspiration, breathing and other body processes is replaced by the water you consume.
Based on clinical trials on adults, published in the journal Nutrition Reviews in 2005, scientists have identified that dehydration has an impact on physical and mental performance. Even mild dehydration — a loss of 1 to 2 percent of body weight — can impact your mental and physical performance. In addition to being thirsty, mild dehydration can cause headaches, decrease your alertness, concentration and memory, and reduce your endurance.
Easy ways to stay hydrated
Here are tips for getting water into your daily routine:
- Choose water instead of caloric, sweetened beverages, especially during mealtime.
- Carry bottled water throughout the day.
- Give your water variety by adding slices of lemon, lime, cucumber or watermelon.
- Add sugar-free flavored powders to water as a treat.
- Choose flavored sparkling water as another zero-calorie option.
- Drink a cup of water before and after workouts, and more if it's hot or your workout is long and strenuous. Sip water throughout the workout for steady rehydration.
Surprising facts
Did you know that simply replacing one 140-calorie sugared beverage a day with water can cut more than 50,000 calories from your diet each year, as reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition? Here are more facts to drink in:
- The average person gets more than 20 percent of their total caloric intake each day from beverages. Research suggests this number should be closer to 10 percent. To achieve that goal, pay attention to the calories per serving in all your beverages.
- We drink about 450 calories a day. In 1965 we consumed only 225 calories from beverages.
- A 2010 study from the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that soda, energy and sports drinks — including sweetened water products — rank number four as a source of calories for Americans, providing an average of 114 calories/day.
Choosing water can make a powerful difference to your health. To learn more, visit www.nestle-waters.com.
Share this story:


text:
Top Bars in Lisbon – Your Favourite Lisbon Bars
Countless bars and clubs grace the streets of Lisbon especially in the city's liveliest district, Bairro Alto. Over at our Hostelworld.com Facebook page we asked you about your favourite bars in
Lisbon. Here's your list of the best bars in Lisbon!
Arroz Doce
Arroz Doce is recommended by: Ricardo Gomes.
Hostelworld.com says:
This bar is popular with both locals and visitors to Lisbon's Bairro Alto area. Here you'll be able to sample a tempting variety of tipples including 'pontapé na cona', a sweet and usually dark beer.
Location: Rua da Atalaia, 119.
Bacalhoeiro is recommended by: Janaina Carreira.
Hostelworld.com says:
At this club you'll find DJs providing the tunes for the punters enjoying themselves out on the dance floor or sitting around the venue sipping their drinks. As well as acting as a bar and club, Bacalhoeiro also hosts exhibitions and plenty more.
Location: Rua dos Bacalhoeiros, 126.
Maria Caxuxa
Maria Caxuxa is recommended by: Paulo Tito Silva.
Hostelworld.com says:
A trendy spot, Maria Caxuxa is located inside a former bakery and some of the old machinery used in the bakery still decorates the interior. This large bar boasts a relaxed atmosphere during the week, and the place really heats up on weekends when house music plays until the wee hours.
Location: Rua da Barroca, 6-12.
Chapitô is recommended by: Edgar Antão.
Hostelworld.com says:
Here you won't just find a bar or a restaurant or an entertainment venue. Instead, you'll find all those things and more! While you enjoy your drinks or sample some of the tapas dishes on offer, you'll be entertained by a whole host of performers including magicians, jugglers, people on stilts and many, many more. With its large interior and terrace seating area, this bar and its carnival-esque atmosphere attract a wide variety of visitors.
Location: Rua Costa do Castelo, 7.
Pavilhão Chinês
Filipe Janeiro says:
Pavilhão Chinês! Without any doubts the best bar in Lisbon. Don't miss it when u'll come here. =)
Hostelworld.com says:
Crammed full of kitschy items from model planes to toy soldiers, this funky bar is a lively spot where you can enjoy a few drinks. There's a billiards table on the premises too.
Location: Rua Dom Pedro V, 89.
Crew Hassan
Jorge Santomé says:
Crew Hassan. More than a bar, vegan food, expositions, music, cheap in general… and don´t miss the decoration!
Hostelworld.com says:
Home to live music shows, exhibitions, workshops and plenty more, Crew Hassan is a pretty diverse venue offering up a large variety of entertainment options each and every night.
Location: Rua das Portas de Santo Antão, 159.
Ginjinha do Rossio
Ginjinha do Rossio is recommended by: Valentina Buttol.
Hostelworld.com says:
A tiny little hole in the wall bar, Ginjinha do Rossio is the perfect spot to try out 'ginjinha' or 'ginja', a very popular Portuguese liqueur made from sour cherries. At the bottom of each shot you'll usually find a cherry for you to nibble on after you down the drink.
Location: Largo São Domingos, 8.
Cinco Lounge
Pamela Aurilia says:
Definitely Cinco Lounge!!! Is in Bairro Alto area.Great cocktail bar and Dave the owner is so friendly and nice!!! Great place
Hostelworld.com says:
Chic yet comfortable, this cocktail lounge is a popular spot with people who come to enjoy the relaxed atmosphere and colourful cocktails. You'll be spoiled for choice here, as the drinks menu includes more than 100 cocktails and plenty more besides.
Location: Rua Ruben A. Leitao, 17-a.
Opening hours: Tues-Sat 9pm-2am, closed Sundays and Mondays.
A Tasca do Chico
A Tasca do Chico is recommended by: Uf Que Rollo.
Hostelworld.com says:
If you're looking to hear Portugal's famous fado music make sure to check out A Tasca do Chico. In this bar you'll see both seasoned and amateur fado musicians perform.
Location: Rua Diário de Noticias, 39.
As Primas
As Primas is recommended by: Uf Que Rollo.
Hostelworld.com says:
As Primas is one of Lisbon's popular gay bars. Here you'll find an animated crowd enjoying some drinks, playing pool or bopping along to the tunes playing on the jukebox.
Location: Rua da Atalaia, 154.
Incógnito Bar
Incógnito Bar is recommended by: Uf Que Rollo.
Hostelworld.com says:
A popular alternative bar and club, Incógnito is spread across three different levels including a basement dance floor. Generally pretty crowded, this bar serves up a wide variety of drinks to the sweet sounds of alt rock and retro pop.
Location: Rua Poliais de Sao Bento, 37.
Lux is recommended by: Miguel Mendes.
Hostelworld.com says:
Seen as one of Europe's top nightspots, this club is partly owned by actor John Malkovich. Hosting some of the world's top DJs, boasting an ultra cosmopolitan interior and attracting Lisbon's beautiful people, this club is an upmarket spot. Keep in mind there's a pretty hefty admission charge but this does include some drinks.
Location: Avenida Infante D Henrique Santa Apolonia.
Bairro Alto
Beatriz Marques says:
Please, don't miss BAIRRO ALTO!
Anthi Provatari says:
YES!The fantastic area of Bairro Alto, where all the cool places are, serving cheap cocktails!
Oreste Tatikawa says:
i love Lisbon.. perfect city… Bairro alto has perfect bars
Bernhard Altendorfer says:
Hostelworld.com says:
Bairro Alto is widely regarded as the place to party in Lisbon. Along the neighbourhood's two main drags, Rua da Barroca and Rua da Italia, you'll find a great selection of bars. The action doesn't keep to the interior of these bars though, so you'll often find the streets crowded with revellers!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.


text:
B.C.'s health officials are warning people to stay protected during sex, as sexually transmitted infection rates continue to rise.
The warning comes on World Sexual Health Day as rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis surge in B.C.
"The trend seeing in B.C. is similar to other provinces and other countries," said Mark Gilbert, the medical director of clinical prevention services at the BC Centre for Disease Control.
"There's several reasons and they're hard to disentangle."
Gilbert said some of the increase in STI rates comes from changes in sexual behaviours, such as the rise of online dating.
Chlamydia is the most common STI in B.C., according to the CDC, and rose three per cent from 2016 to 2017, up to 15,646 cases. Women are 1.5 times more likely to get diagnosed with chlamydia than men.
Gonorrhea has shot up in recent years, with 3,281 cases in 2017. Rates have been climbing since 2005, but the province saw a 70-per-cent diagnosis increase from 2014 to 2015 alone. Men are more likely than women to get diagnosed, possibly because they get more urgent symptoms.
Infectious syphilis has gone up since 2010, but figures show the rate of increase might be slowing. In 2017, there were 685 cases reported, a 10-per-cent drop. Both syphilis and gonorrhea have higher rates among gay and bisexual men.
Gilbert said another reason behind higher STI rates is likely an increase in testing, especially for infections that don't show symptoms.
The decrease of HIV, as well as better treatments that mean the disease is no longer a death sentence, he said, may mean people are less scared of unprotected sex, but the stigma related to STIs is still a problem.
The CDC recommends getting tested regularly, speaking to a health professional and your partners about protection and STIs, and always using protection.
READ MORE: Teens who take birth control face increased risk of depression as adults: B.C. study
READ MORE: New genetic links to same-sex sexuality found in huge U.S. study
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.


text:
Coming Out, Coming Of Age As A Teen 'Pariah'
When the new film Pariah opens nationally, it's safe to say it will not be competing with any other movies about a black teenager coming of age as a lesbian in Brooklyn.
"It's not so much coming out, but coming into," clarifies director Dee Rees. "Alike, the main character, knows she loves women. That's not her struggle. Her struggle's more how to be in the world."
Right at the beginning of the film, Alike visits a bustling lesbian nightclub for the first time. She's both transfixed and horrified by the gleaming, leave-nothing-to-the-imagination pole dancers.
"It was important for the opening to be very provocative," Rees says. "And so like Alike, we're patted down, stamped and shoved into the world without explanation."
Pariah's entrance into the world was assisted partly by the Sundance Institute, which helped develop the film from a short into Rees' first dramatic feature. Earlier this year, the film was given the honor of opening the Sundance Film Festival.
"Everyone that's up on the mountain that day, you sort of force them to see these films," says festival director Trevor Groth, who acknowledges that the film's subject matter is not exactly mainstream. But he said it enjoyed "a huge audience reaction," and Focus Features reportedly outbid competing offers to acquire Pariah for around $800,000.
Hear An Interview With Rees And Oduye
Producer Nekisa Cooper says Pariah is not without autobiographical elements both for her and Rees. "I can definitely identify with coming out and going to the club and feeling, like not hard enough or soft enough; I was uncomfortable," she says. "And people were uncomfortable with me."
Back then, Cooper spent her days in the corporate world. She met Rees when they were both freshly minted MBAs working at Colgate Palmolive.
"I was working on toothbrushes and she was working on toothpaste," Cooper laughs. "You know, I was walking down the hallway one day at Colgate — and there aren't many people of color in this space — and saw her coming toward me. And at the time, she had this almost Diana Ross-like Afro. Very stunning."
The two began to date. While the relationship did not last, the friendship endured. Soon Rees abandoned the corporate world for film school. And Cooper wound up producing her first documentary, a process she describes as not unlike doing brand management for Colgate. The documentary, Eventual Salvation, aired on the Sundance Channel a few years ago. It followed the story of Rees' grandmother, who expatriated to Liberia in the 1950s.
Pariah is also fundamentally a story about family. Rees was intent on building believable relationships between Alike, the movie's teenage lesbian protagonist, and her disapproving parents.
"I had a psychotherapist friend come in and do a mock therapy session with the actors," she explains. "It really helped create this passive aggressive tension that runs underneath everything."
Cooper says she and Rees took their parents to see Pariah very recently. Before that screening, they said they'd never been able to talk openly with their parents about their lives as gay women.
"And afterward my father stood up and had tears in his eyes," Cooper says. "They understood Alike's angst more — and my angst, coincidentally — after having seen the movie. And my father apologized for some of the things he said when I came out to them."
Pariah is about family stories, coming-of-age stories and stories about coming into the world. And Pariah completely transformed the stories of Cooper and Rees as well.


text:
Reviews you can trust.
See why.Mini Prep Bowl Sets
Mini prep bowls allow cooks to measure out, separate, and organize these elements, making cooking tidier and more efficient.
Last Updated Nov. 14, 2022. Appears in America's Test Kitchen TV Season 17: Autumn Desserts
Our favorite mini prep bowl set, the Anchor Hocking 6-Piece Nesting Prep Bowl Set, has been discontinued. Our top choice is now Anchor Hocking's Custard Cups.
What You Need To Know
Following the lead of professional chefs seen on television, many home cooks now use mini prep bowls to help them complete their mise en place, or the preparation and arrangement of the various ingredients needed to execute a recipe. Mini prep bowls allow cooks to measure out, separate, and organize these elements, making cooking tidier and more efficient.
Since we last tested these bowls in 2009, two of our three recommended sets have been discontinued, so a second look was warranted. First, we ruled out bowls with a capacity of 2 ounces or less for being too small. We then gathered seven sets of the most widely available mini prep bowls, covering a range of sizes and materials, and put them through a battery of tests. We wanted to see how easy they were to fill and empty, how well they contained different volumes of food, how vulnerable they were to staining and odors, how well they stood up to repeated washing, and how breakable they were when pushed off the counter. We also wanted to evaluate their versatility: Could they be microwaved and/or put in the oven? Could they handle both wet and dry ingredients? (Several of the bowl sets came with lids, which come in handy if you're prepping and storing your ingredients ahead of time. However, while we liked having them, the performance of the bowls themselves was more important to us than this extra feature.)
With the exception of the silicone bowls, which were small, floppy, and retained food odors, most of the sets worked pretty well. Glass mini prep bowls dominate the market, and for good reason. They're oven-, microwave-, and dishwasher-safe; they tend to be fairly sturdy; and they're easy to clean, retaining no off-odors or food stains. Their only drawback is that they are slightly susceptible to static cling, making it a little more difficult to extract fine or dry ingredients like chopped herbs or ground pepper. Sets made of stainless steel or recycled materials like bamboo had less of a problem with static cling but were demoted for various reasons—among other problems, they couldn't be microwaved, limiting their functionality.
While most of the sets we tested contained bowls of only one size (usually between 4 and 8 ounces), our favorite set had six nested bowls of different sizes, including two medium-size bowls of 10 and 16 ounces. Made of heavy glass, the relatively wide and shallow bowls were easy to fill, empty, and clean. And with a slight lip on the outside, they were also comfortable to grip while whisking or scooping out ingredients. The only problem: They were the only glass bowls that broke when we pushed them off the counter during our durability test. H...
Everything We Tested
Reviews you can trust
Reviews you can trust
The mission of America's Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing. We stand behind our winners so much that we even put our seal of approval on them.


text:
'From the New World' Sci-Fi Anime
The story is set in Japan a millennium from now. Five children — the protagonist Saki, Satoru, Maria, Mamoru, and Shun — have been born and raised in a tranquil town that can be described as a utopia, overflowing with water and green foliage. The world is ruled by people who have the "cursed power" or the "gods' power" of telekinesis. After a certain incident, Saki and the others come to realize the true nature of their world. Before long, they learn everything, including the bloody history that brought humanity to this state. The five throw themselves into life-threatening adventure and fighting to protect friends and a world on the brink of collapse.


text:
- Home
- Explore
- Burnsville Community Media
- Cable Franchise Information
Cable Franchise Information
What is a Cable Franchise?
Cable television is regulated through federal and state law, along with a local franchise the City of Burnsville holds with the cable provider. This franchise agreement allows the company to operate cable television and internet systems in the City, and run cable on and through City-owned right-of-way.
Who has a Cable Franchise?
Comcast: Granted cable franchise on May 14, 2019. Expires May 14, 2029. [Download PDF]
What does the City get from this agreement?
As part of the current franchise agreements, the City currently receives benefits from the cable company that include:
- Six channels in the Comcast cable tier to use for Public, Education and Government (PEG) television programming. (Channels 14, 15, 16, 18, 19 and 20)
- Dedicated fiber to help connect government and education facilities to video and data services.
- PEG Fees -- used toward public, education and government television.
- Franchise Fees -- currently 5% of video-related gross revenue. These funds are used:
- To pay for communications-related items including the Burnsville Bulletin, website hosting fees, software and online services used by the City, Communications Department staff and other print, digital and multi-media communication tools. Of this amount:
- $185,000 is transferred to the City's General Fund annually.
- The remainder is allocated to the City's dedicated Cable Franchise Fee Fund.
How does this impact me?
Burnsville's franchises provide a number of benefits to the City and community, including revenue to proactively and transparently communicate with residents and business owners; local public, government and educational access television programming and programming opportunities; a community television studio/media center open to Burnsville residents and community organizations; affordable internet connectivity for government and school facilities; and more.
Can the City control cable rates under the franchise?
The City Council has no authority over rate regulation. A change in federal law some years ago removed the City's authority to regulate the basic rate charged to residents for cable service. In addition, a petition to the Federal Communications Commission by Comcast (that was accepted in 2011) removed the City's authority to regulate rates for cable television equipment.
While the franchise provides residents with protection of the public right-of-way, and a number of other community benefits, the current regulatory climate does not provide rate increase protection. It is left to competition in the marketplace to help dictate those rates.
Cable Complaints
The City does have an escalated complaint process that can be initiated with Comcast. Please note: City staff does not have access to your billing or account but we are happy to mediate a response from Comcast.
Please submit a request online to start the process.